D and Sympathy
by Lady Jaida
Summary: A series of missing scenes. After each episode is a prelude to the next. D and Leon's relationship -- whatever that is -- developing in the in-betweens of the manga. Part One: Despair. R&R.
1. Part I: Despair

Having recently re-re-discovered Pet Shop of Horrors, here's a little experiment -- a scene which takes place at the end of each "episode," hopefully working chronologically, exploring/furthering through time D and Leon's 'relationship.' Er, whatever that may be. Hopefully not just an exercise in futility. 

D and Sympathy

Part I: Despair 

The real irony is, Leon Orcot doesn't like Chinatown. He doesn't even like Chinese food, beyond a certain pleasure in cheap takeout with extra grease. It isn't that he's racist. He's American, with the distinct, American assumption that all other cultures are weird. Chinatown is weird. Chinese food is weird. The underlying weirdness only serves to color how goddamn weird D is, and D is pretty goddamn weird. In fact, weird doesn't even cover what D is. Weird covers the pet shop part, the incense part, the Chinese culture part, the long nails, the cheongsam, the mismatched eyes, the unexpected obsession with sweets. But the feeling Leon gets, creepy-crawly down the center of his spine whenever he catches the aforementioned mismatched eyes; or the wrench in his gut whenever he hears the rustle of the aforementioned cheongsam silk; or what he thinks he sees, long nails navigating too easily each sweet puff of pastry -- that's not weird. There's a word for it Leon's vocabulary doesn't possess. It isn't wrong, but it gets the hair on the back of his neck to prickling just the same. 

Leon rubs the back of his neck. He feels at odds with himself and with the surrounding environment. The incense smells thick and sweet, heavy on the air, which is better than having to smell an assortment of God knows how many different animals. Simple incense shouldn't do so much for keeping a room smelling not fresh but nothing short of pristine. That's weird, too. It doesn't smell like animals in this place, buried deep beyond the normal confines of even Chinatown, somewhere just off the edge of every map. Normal, American rules don't apply. Normal, Chinese rules don't apply. The rooms -- sprawling and, Leon suspects, maze-like, endless, tangled just beyond the reach of a few tempting doors -- smell like the pivotal but unreachable word, ultimate but just beyond the tip of his tongue. Indescribable. _In-D-scribable_, Leon thinks, and seconds after feels the need to punch a hole in something. 

What Leon can't describe gets him aggravated. It always has. It's a coping mechanism, an understandable tendency, undeniably human. From the very first minute he stepped into this place, he knew how it was going to be. High ceilings, exotic plants, the air tasting like tea and unrefined sugar. The confusing eddies of incense like smoke, like mist. Each shadow testing each shadow, with darker corners and the shifting of unnamed creatures in hidden cages. Sound everywhere, though muted beneath the crush of the oppressive air: birds shifting their wings, dogs scratching themselves, monkeys making unnecessary comments. Or the itchy feeling of cats watching you. Leon doesn't even trust the plants. A flower is just a flower; a rose just a rose. In Count D's pet shop, Leon wouldn't be surprised if there were piranhas beneath the petals, or if they were those huge, man-eating plants you saw in old horror flicks. Complete with a tongue and teeth and everything. Leon doesn't exactly make sure he's sitting as far away from an arrangement of Calla Lilies as possible; he resists the urge bravely, with minimal uncomfortable shifting. 

Coming to the Pet Shop for the answers in a strange case has been one thing. Indulging in afternoon tea after a funeral is another. Leon doesn't want to stay. But, in the grand tradition of humanity and contradiction, instinct is no match for curiosity. Leon is no exception to this common reoccurrence. He'd leave, but he doesn't trust the count left to his own devices. He'd go, but there are clues to be found here. Even in cups of tea, which are taking a hell of a long time to make. Maybe it's special voodoo tea. Maybe the count is going to drug him and feed him to a vulture in the back room; maybe he's gotten too close to the truth of the matter and he's got to be silenced before he tells anyone else of his suspicions. 

Maybe the incense is getting to him and he's hallucinating. 

Leon shifts like a kid in the first grade, rubbing his palms on his thighs. He's not just hallucinating his own reactions, a mixture of insecurity and annoyance. Everything around him is an antique, the main room a clutter of fat vases and slow clocks, brocade lounge couches, squat coffee tables. The telephone is this early 1900s number, black and gold. There are no windows; there isn't any natural light. A few porcelain lamps with flickering bulbs shift red and yellow color through the canopies of incense. Who knew smell was tangible? Leon wonders if he's out of his league in a place too dark for comprehension, timeless and nameless both. It only serves to make him angrier. He doesn't like to question himself.

"You're not putting any damn opium in that tea, are you, count?" Anything to break the mockery of silence, the hidden sounds beneath the still atmosphere. Even if he isn't very good with words, Leon can still make noise. Noise doesn't call for culture, or even good improvisational skills: just a loud voice and shameless intervention. Leon doesn't know on whose behalf he's intervening, even if he does have a sneaking suspicion it's his own. The straps of leather pulled tight over his shoulders and sliding up underneath his armpits -- he hates wearing a goddamn jacket on the job; he hates the discomfort that comes with looking respectable -- are two points of reassuring pressure. Guns work anywhere, he tells himself. 'Weird' isn't bulletproof. 

"Patience," the count replies, "patience, Mr. Detective." The count has thin lips well accustomed to secretive smiles. Leon watches the pale curve of the guy's chin with the same curiosity that keeps him in his seat. Shit if he doesn't look more like a woman than some women Leon knows. His cheongsam is silver and black, with a high tight color and these intricately embroidered clasps. Leon almost remembers what they're called, but not quite. There are momentary bursts of white along a splash of silver; small budded flowers on a bloodless vine. Looks like a dress to Leon. The sleeves are long and flared and the entire business reaches down to the counts ankles. Leon can't find any seams on the thing -- not that he's staring. When the count bends over, it moves little whispers in the honeyed air. 

"I'm a busy man," Leon protests. "I've got work to do; I can't wait around all day for tea to brew." The count levels him with an unfaltering look. It leaves him off balance, though he's sitting down. One purple eye, one gold, and a range of unreadable wisdom flashing in each. How does a guy get eyes like that, Leon wonders, and what the hell do they mean? That you have a predisposition for crossdressing? That you're going to work for the Chinese mafia in L.A.? That you're going to kill a blonde detective from the L.A.P.D. when he least expects it and use him as fishbait? The whole situation gives Leon the willies. It's not natural. Count D and his pet shop and his dresses and his uncanny eyes -- all of this is not natural.

"I thought perhaps you might have questions," the count says, suddenly amiable. "I assume you do not take much sugar in your tea?"

"None. No sugar, I mean," Leon amends. Snorts. "I have too many damn questions for one cup of tea."

"Very well." The count sniffs, thin nostrils half-widened, as if, of the two of them, Leon is the crazy one. The count pours tea like a professional, forefinger pressed against the top of the plain white pot, nails like wounds, like bloodstains, against the smooth pot belly. He pours a cup first for Leon, and then one for himself. The bat -- creature -- thing -- that hangs around him watches Leon now, with beady black eyes, wings propelling him back and forth between the opposite couches. 

"I don't feel like I'm welcome," Leon mutters. His hands are too big for the small cup. He swallows the tea in one gulp and burns his tongue and the back of his throat. "Shit! Jesus Christ, count, are you trying to kill me?"

"If I could boil the water cold," the count murmurs, "I assure you, I would." He passes his left hand, palm up, in a semi-circle between them. "Questions, Mr. Detective, questions. Neither of us has all day; we both know how it is to be busy men." Leon clears his throat. Questions, he thinks, questions. He has questions coming out the ass. If it's the count's intention to get him hung up on which question to start with, Leon sure as hell isn't going to let him.

"You think I was born yesterday?" Leon begins.

"No."

"You have to think I'm some sort of idiot."

"Tell me, Mr. Detective, why I would think that?"

"So you honestly want me to believe a _lizard_, a lizard that actually looked like some kind of a _woman_, had these -- these abracadabra eyeballs, and that's what killed Robin Hendrix?" The count could fool Leon once out of shock, pure disbelief that such bullshit was coming out of someone's mouth, but twice? Leon is too old to believe in ghost stories. He's a policeman, for Christ's sake; the world is full of homicidal nutjobs, drug lords and corrupt politicians, sure, but not women-lizards whose very gaze could turn a man to stone. And besides, the last time Leon saw him, Robin Hendrix was very much _not_ stone. He was just dead. There's a big difference. "Life's not a video game," Leon points out. "Shit like that just doesn't happen; it's just not real." Leon hopes that banging his fist emphatically on the coffee table will hammer his point home. He also hopes that it doesn't break the coffee table. He gets the feeling that the tea set the count is using is worth more than a month's rent for Leon's apartment. The coffee table is probably a priceless heirloom the count bought with his drug money.

"You were ready enough to believe it earlier." The count takes a polite sip of his tea before offering Leon a second cup. "Is it the funeral which has changed your mind? The reality of death leading you to question the supposedly impossible; the heavy handed truth of a man's absolute despair?"

"Stop talking mumbo-jumbo," Leon snaps. "I don't want another cup of your tea. I've got a meeting at -- shit. I've got a meeting in fifteen minutes."

"It's very expensive," the count informs him. "With just a hint of jasmine; I've been told it cools the temper, but perhaps yours is a special case. I would rather tell you the nature of despair, but it seems philosophy is hardly your strong point."

"Someone _died_." Leon balls his fists. The count really is something else. Expounding on the truths of life and death as if _that's_ the fantastical, but making the whole lizard story out to be the fundamental truth of the matter! His brain's on backwards, Leon thinks, or _something_. "A guy _died_ and you want to talk to me about 'the nature of despair'? _Hell_ no. I'm outta here."

"Come again soon," the count calls after him. His voice glides up the long set of stairs, chasing Leon out into the sunlight. It takes Leon's eyes a full half minute to re-adjust. Crazy count. He'd keep Leon down in the darkness for too long and have him believe the sun's what's wrong with his eyesight. And the real irony is, Leon Orcot doesn't even like Chinatown. The back streets smell like something sweet frying; the fake pavilion storefronts are just that, so they aren't fooling Leon; and behind him, as he lights up a sorely-needed cigarette, is just some crazy asshole's pet shop cover story. Leon's going to bust him. The smell of tobacco and cigarette smoke grounds him, chases off the last lingering pet shop perfume. He's going to nail that sonovabitch, and he's going to nail him good. 

"_Count D_." Leon shakes his head. "Just you _wait_."


	2. Part II: Daughter

D and Sympathy 

Part II: Daughter 

Bunnies. _Bunnies._ Leon always thought they were supposed to be cute, fluffy, not the makings of a deranged nightmare. He guesses fur is just a fooler for those little beady eyes, those pulsating masses of destructive life. All he'll be seeing for a long time is bunny incisors chewing their way through bunny bellies. Leon is never going to be able to look at another rabbit again in his life without thinking, _evil._ Red-eyed, squirming, biting evil. It's an easy distinction to make, when you've watched Mrs. Hayward being torn to pieces and an entire town overrun with the things.  Devouring dogs, chomping on children, multiplying too fast to kill. It's been another day right out of a horror movie. Leon is bone tired, the world again feels like it's just barely scraped out of potential chaos, and all signs point to D. 

Granted, the inside of Leon's head sounds like a Raymond Chandler novel. His brain has begun to work in short, choppy sentences, packed with just enough accusatory oomph to look damn fine in black and white but damn pathetic even in Technicolor. Leon half expects himself to bring a typewriter into his apartment and acquire a fedora. He already smokes like Humphrey Bogart. His day-to-day conversation lacks a certain hard-jawed conviction, but he's working on it. _Chinatown_, he thinks. _Dark alleyways, dirty dealings._ It would sound all right if he weren't having tea with the owner of a suspicious pet shop, if he weren't here because of a bunny incident, if there were any clues other than the wriggle in his own belly and the mistrust in his own eyes. Again with the tea; again with the distraction tactics. But Leon isn't stupid enough to fall for the same decoy twice. Even if the tea set is different this time. The teapot is dark black with a glossy sheen; an insouciant gold dragon winds over the back and around the handle. The count must have an endless supply of teapots, not to mention an endless supply of cheongsams -- which Leon can't even think of as dresses anymore. He gets the feeling the count is listening, and hates the sly redirection of the count's eyes as they focus on Leon's erroneous thoughts.

The cheongsam makes that recognizable paper-rustle sound of cloth on layer of cloth. It, too, is black, with gold winding along one arm and in scales across his belly. There are moments of silver, hidden flashes of light. Leon isn't any expert on fashion; all he knows are t-shirts, jeans and converse sneakers, the occasional bomber jacket, fresh socks. The count is made out of silk and expensive silk at that. Such intricate detail, such painstaking embroidery. Leon wonders how many little kids in China sat in a sweatshop for days on end eating Lord-knows-what to get that dress to the count on time, then tells himself it's just not the count's style. The count is more classy than that, more refined. 

Too refined. It's fooling everyone but Leon, who knows down to his marrow he's the only sorry bastard who can see right through him. Even if there are no hard facts yet, something's bound to turn up sooner or later. 

Whatever the count comes up with this time is going to have to be good. You can't just explain away rabid mutant bunnies with a cup of tea and a charming smile. Besides, men with lipstick on just don't do it for Leon where charm is concerned. In fact, _men_ don't do it for Leon, but men with lipstick give him the creeps. The count has these thin, red lips that tug back into an unsettling smile -- patronizing, a little chiding, complacent, all-knowing and ultimately secretive. If he were any other guy Leon would knock him one right upside the head, but every time Leon gets worked up enough to do just that something in him falters. The animals get silent, or the hairs on the back of his neck prickle, or the count stops smiling and really looks at him, and the scent in the air shifts to bitterness. Everything warns him not to be rash, that it's just stupidity. Besides, you don't go around punching porcelain. It's beautiful, breakable, but it shatters. It bites back. 

Leon rubs the left side of his jaw. He doesn't like feeling moody, and he doesn't like brooding. There's too much to think about where the count is concerned, too much contradicting evidence. Half of Leon refuses to believe the shit he's seen, a lizard named Medusa turning some poor actor to stone, and now evil attack bunnies that not more than a half hour ago were threatening to overrun the continent. He's not crazy. He's not _going_ crazy. He's grounded in reality, that's what he is, something the count doesn't quite seem to get. These things don't happen in the real world. They happen in bad sci-fi flicks, but you don't see them while on duty. Except Leon did see them, and while no logical explanation has presented itself, all he has to go by is the count's word. Instinct tells him not to trust the count, but he's already accepted a third cup of tea. And the count isn't putting too much sugar in it anymore. Leon knows what that means: it's some sign of familiarity and respect now physically present between them, though Leon doesn't know how to label it. 

Such an overture can't be ignored. The count's well-manicured hand looks to Leon in this moment like ones made to offer. He hands Leon a cup of tea with genteel civility. Leon wonders if he handed Mr. And Mrs. Hayward their bunny in the same way: polite, well-mannered, entirely unreadable and completely foreboding. Little did Mr. Hayward know the bunny was going to eat him alive. Little did Mrs. Hayward know she was going to watch her husband die that way, and follow him soon after. Little does Leon know what exactly is in this tea, other than this mysterious 'jasmine' crap. Still, he's not chicken. He'll call every one of the count's bluffs if it kills him. "Down the rabbit hole," Leon says, and knocks the hot liquid back. If the count is watching him, deviously wry, Leon couldn't care less. If the tea scalds a little on its way down -- throat and tongue already burnt from the prior two cups of carelessness -- Leon also couldn't care less. 

"You are still harboring some misgivings, Mr. Detective," the count says. He doesn't ask. He doesn't strike Leon as the sort of guy who ever has to ask. He slips conversation into the silence subtly enough that Leon's thoughts are never interrupted, only displaced, drawn just behind the sound of D's voice. A sly talent. Leon leans forward, circles his index finger around his teacup, smells the gradual warmth of the jasmine tea. You could get lost in a place like this. You could forget there's something weird in the incense. You could stop wondering why the light is overrun with shadow deep below the street. You could almost lose track of time. 

Drugs. The guy's gotta be dealing in experimental drugs. 

Damn straight Leon's harboring some misgivings. 

"Damn straight I'm 'harboring some misgivings'," he replies. "And don't worry, I'll get to them in my own time." Whatever look he's giving the count right now, he hopes it makes the guy nervous, and knows it won't. There's a certain futility with his struggles here, like banging his head against the bars of a cage. His head isn't any stronger than the bars are; his head will give before the metal does, but damned if he isn't going to get the satisfaction of at least trying. He drums his fingers against the low tea table, looking for the right words. "_Bunnies_?" he asks at last.

The count sips his tea. His knuckles are white, his fingers thin, his palm curved against the black side of the teacup. Leon misses having a handle to hold onto, something to remind him of the America going on just outside of the count's shop. "They were indeed rabbits, Mr. Detective," the count answers. "You were not hallucinating; neither was the Los Angeles Police Department." 

"If this was your idea of a fucking joke," Leon warns. Half of him refuses to believe, also, that the delicacy of the count can harbor such callous indifference. The man just doesn't give a flying crap. It makes Leon angry not for himself, not for his own integrity, but for what the human race is coming to that some people just don't care anymore. "People were hurt. People were killed. _Animal_, too_._" At the last on Leon's list, the count sighs deeply. Pained about puppies, Leon assumes. Pained about pigeons. Not bothered in the least about the deaths of Mr. and Mrs. Hayward, his own customers, the other nameless casualties suffered, the terrified children, or Leon's unnerved state. "I mean, they were _bunnies_, but -- but this was some serious business, count. If the things hadn't been poisoned by whatever it was--"

"But they were," the count answers. 

"But that's not--" Leon explodes.

"But they were." The count levels another arch look in Leon's direction. 'Are you serious, Mr. Detective?' Leon imagines the count is thinking. 'Can you really be so childish.' 'How is it that you allow such petty concerns to trouble you?' He feels a sudden surge of impotent anger in his gut. He's punched better men for this, stronger men, and in public. His fists ball on his thighs. He grinds his molars, with no other outlet for his rage. A few birds squawk and beat their wings; a monkey chitters its protest; dogs begin to bark in warning. The count's goddamn bat-thing scolds him, _chirp chirp chirp chyuu_, right in the ear. Leon wonders if this is what a migraine feels like. Leon wants a beer. Hell, Leon deserves a beer, after the unbelievable day he's had. 

"I thought you gave a shit about animals, anyway," he mutters, without conviction, with only sullen insolence left to his cause. "All those rabbits, killing one another, dying themselves. They ate a couple of dogs and God knows how many pigeons and cats, too, I've heard."

"A pity," the count says, and means it. 

"Guess you just don't make safety first." Leon takes another swallow of his tea. He watches the count warily throughout, not willing to bear his neck to him, not willing to be vulnerable under any circumstances. He's glad to find his tea has at last cooled. 

"I am not unrealistic," the count replies. He explains things carefully, slowly, so that Leon -- with all his misapprehensions, with all his misconceptions -- will be able to follow such complicated logic. "I understand the various necessities involved in both life and death." In this moment the count looks altogether cold and untouchable, so that Leon longs to grab him by the shoulders shake him up. Who died and made this asshole king? Who told him he could sit there on his high horse looking down on everyone and doing everything short of calling it all foolishness outright? The guy must think he's some kind of god, capable of administering justice to those struggling to get by beneath him. One of these days Leon is going to wipe that smug expression right off his pale face. One of these days those lips won't be so condescending.

"Life isn't about necessities," Leon counters. He's never been good at debating -- he's more of a fist-meet-face kind of belligerent jerk -- but some things need to be said. Some sides need arguing. "Life is about people and people," he continues, "people aren't bunny food. You can't pull this sort of shit and expect to get away with it."

"I haven't pulled anything," the count says. His smile is amiable. "Good day, Mr. Detective."


End file.
